Sad Panda

What interests me is how much the difficulty will be tied to character builds. It's been implied that you'll be able to sneak past or talk your way out of combat situations, but I wonder if this is an approach that will carry throughout the game, or will there be boss battles etc. where fighting head-on is your only choice. In the latter case, at least on harder difficulty the case may be as in e.g. the ID games, i.e. character builds or party compositions non-optimal for combat will instantly get churned to butter. >_>

Of course depends on the particulars of the system, but I wager they're talking about static environments, i.e. the background on which characters move, since they're all handcrafted (as opposed to rendered). Flags etc. could be placed as separate objects on top of the background, however, and could then in theory have the same customizability as characters, if such was implemented. Technically there's nothing particularly challenging about allowing a free choice of colour schemes -- as you said, this mechanism is already in place for character armours, so if the devs had the foresight of extending the functionality to other objects as well, it wouldn't even be any great amount of work.

Looking at the trailer, the characters do indeed seem to be 2D sprites created using 3D models -- which was in fact also the case with the classic IE games, though you had to squint to be able to tell. >_> Personally I don't see a problem even if this is what they're going with for the final release. 3D is much more resource intensive, and the gain in visuals IMO fairly small.

Tend to agree that more information would be welcome. Would new staff be hired to realise the features? Not only people most immediately relevant to the stretch goal in question, but also those who are needed in all areas of the game, such as play-testers? If not, I can't really see the new features as not being away from the primary development, as the workload would increase across the board. In such a case I'd be against any further additions; Better save those for expansions/DLC.

I'm a bit ambivalent about the "instant item creation" bit. I can't remember if it's been mentioned whether there will be ambient in-game time (as in e.g. Fallout), but if there is, I think it'd be appropriate to have some time pass while making an item. I for one would like to set to work smithing a greatsword at the break of dawn, finishing the work with sun already high up in the sky. Crafting could and should still be immediate from the point of view of the player, though -- having them sit around while a "Crafting item..." counter ticks to completion is a pointless time-waster more suited for MMORPGs.